Weekend box office: Hunter Killer struggles while Halloween continues to do well

Brad SturdivantOctober 28th, 2018

Domestically speaking, it was a sad weekend for new movies. The only new movie to crack the top five was the Gerard Butler starring HUNTER KILLER, which is on pace to pull in about $7 million at the weekend box office. That’s not great, but it’s better than JOHNNY ENGLISH STRIKES AGAIN, which couldn’t even crack the top ten. The Jonah Hill directed MID90S (click the link to read our review) snuck in at number 10 with close to $3 million, but we have to give that film some leeway since it’s a smaller film and was never expected to do very much anyway. This is sometimes a hard concept for those of us in the states to grasp, but this weekend is a good example of movies that got a token stateside release, but were probably always intended to make more money overseas. JOHNNY ENGLISH, for example, is on pace to gross over $100 million around the world, proving that foreign audiences find Rowan Atkinson much funnier than those of us on the other side of the pond.

Next week should feature a nice showdown between some popular movies. First up is BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY, which looks fantastic and has the great music of Queen to help sell it. Early word says Rami Malek nails the role of Freddy Mercury, but that the movie is overall a bit of a letdown. It will be interesting to see how that plays out in terms of ticket sales. Next up is THE NUTCRACKER AND THE FOUR REALMS, which has a great cast and first rate production quality, but the trailers haven’t done a great job of selling it. But it’s always risky to bet against Disney. Then there’s NOBODY’S FOOL, featuring Tiffany Haddish and directed by Tyler Perry. Although it’s risky to bet against Disney, it might be even dumber to bet against Tyler Perry. In the end, I think BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY will take the top spot with Nutcracker and Fool battling for the second position. Note: the numbers below will be updated as they become final.